Rich in America

Came across this in the news recently.  Basically the Forbes list of richest people had gain 8% in value since last year.  And being me, I like to read the comments by 'normal' people below the article.  Most of them complained about how the rich were getting richer and the poor poorer, and how we should do something about that (tax the rich more, etc).

First, 8% in the last year isn't really that big of a gain. My personal stock portfolio (which isn't very big) is up almost 7% for the year (not including dividends).  Which is pretty close to 8%, last time I checked and I assume the rich have people (or are the type of people) that spend more time picking stocks than I do.  So I think they should be making a little bit more.  I also assume that most of the rich have a very large portion of the money invested (AKA working for them).  Whereas I would assume that most American's have a larger portion of money in savings (making a measly 1.5% or so) or no savings.  I recently heard that some ridiculous amount (like 50%) of American's have less than $10k saved by the time they are 50 years old. 

So why are the rich getting richer, and the poor poorer?  Besides the above data I have a theory.  The rich learn how to handle money from who? Their rich parents.  The poor learn how to handle money from their poor parents.  So, the poor start with less money and end with less because they never learned how to manage money.  While the rich start rich and end richer because their money is working for them (see above making 8% instead of 1.5%).

So even if we give the poor money, they don't have the skills (and they often have very pressing needs, which get the money) to get the money to work for them, they often end up just spending it.  Instead of blaming the rich for all the problems of the poor, maybe we should start teaching kids how to handle money (Not going to become financially stable with out the right knowledge).  So that when they get older, they will have the knowledge that will make them successful.  This is (IMHO) one of the biggest failures of our public school system. In 4th grade we did a great study on the stock market, we were split into groups of 4 I think and given $25k in imaginary money.  We got to pick our stocks, great learning tool.  But after 4th grade, I didn't learn anything about money (there was one class in high school that I didn't take that was offered, that was supposed to teach kids how to manage a check book, budget, etc.).  Nothing.  One of the most important things to succeed in our society and our schools aren't teaching anything about it.  No wonder why we end up with so many people that are struggling to make ends meet.

We need to be teaching kids growing up how to handle money and how to get their money to work for them.  Most kids graduate high school and move out end up learning how to handle money on the fly.  Spend a little here, spend a little there, borrow some here, borrow some there, whoops, how'd I get in this big hole?  I think a little financial education could go a long way to helping people take the steps to get out of poverty.  Maybe start that forth grade project and continue through high school, so we could see how the money grew.

I know the problem is very complex and multifaceted, but we have to start somewhere...
Just a thought.